dinsdag 27 september 2016

Autumn on the Isle of Wight

The summer season definitely is over. The population of our village is now back to 20% of what it was in the summer. The holiday houses and summer houses are empty, there are almost no cars on the street and the water of the Solent contains hardly any sailboats anymore.

We go to the pharmacy to get our yearly flu jab and coming out of it, we see an old lady wearing sunglasses and walking with a stick. We get into a talk with her about mobility scooters. She does not dare to go to far anymore, her eyesight is slowly disappearing. But she still likes to use it in the village. She is 91 and we admire her courage; we know quite a lot of people 20 years or more younger who don't dare to use a scooter.

The conversation gets to the post office. After it has been taken from us months ago it has been decided that we get a new post office situated in the pharmacy. We are very happy with that.
It was sad enough to see in the last years lots of good things taken from the village. Not only did we lose the post office, but also the lovely wildlife centre, the swimming pool, two restaurants, two pubs and the frequency of the visits of the library on wheels has been halved, just like the evening bus services. The nearest police station now is situated in Newport, not exactly in walking distance. Only the two churches remained and these are of no interest to us.

The three of us decide that the return of the post office is a good thing, especially for the elderly who often get their pension from it. The old lady tells us she should get on with things, get her flu jab.
"Bye, bye, I might run into you later", she says. "Oops, I don't mean that literally. Would not want to hurt you with my scooter." Laughing out loud she walks into the pharmacy.